I did a double take at the footage the drone was streaming to me; I should’ve been expecting something like this, but the level of squalor visible even from the air was shocking. I’d found a “village” which was centered around a stone structure from my drone’s eye view. Hovels, around twenty of them, along with the stone building, flanked an open square. Surrounding the hovels and the central structure was a palisade, dead trees with tips sharpened to points to form an encompassing wall.

Not daring to bring the drone in too close, I started observing the village from a distance as I walked towards it—I was still several kilometers out. The first thing I noticed, was that the “random-death” phenomenon which had afflicted the robed men in the forest, clearly hadn’t extended all the way to here. People, wearing mostly brown or muted colored clothing moved about, carried things, occasionally met in small groups, or just sat in front of houses on chairs. In the center of the village there was what I assumed to be some sort of market or centralized bartering spot. During my observation period, I saw multiple villagers head there with empty carrying containers and return with goods—probably the raw components of food.

These were good signs; and although the money had hinted at it earlier, I hadn’t quite believed that these people weren’t just nomadic hunter-gatherers. Nevertheless, this village did not impress. I couldn’t get too much detail from the drone so far above, but I was reasonably sure that the roofing material of choice was dried plants. Ridiculous. This observation led me to look closer at the other construction styles present, and the notable exception from the norm in the center of the village.

The exception—the stone building—was taller than all the other buildings in the village and unlike the hovels, used some sort of flat tiled ceramic or stone—the drone’s spectrometer wasn’t good enough to tell at this range—as its primary roofing material. Further setting this building apart from the others, was that it had what appeared to be transparent windows while all the hovels simply had holes in their walls with closeable wooden shutters. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of this building. Clearly, whatever it was, it was important to the locals. Maybe it’s a sign of wealth? Something to figure out later. Now, I have to take care of first contact.

Establishing contact with the locals, was, well, something that I wasn’t looking forwards to. There would be communication problems and nigh-guaranteed social pitfalls that I’d blindly stumble into until I got a better understanding of the language and the culture of these people. For that purpose, it made sense to start small: I decided that I’d pick someone at the outskirts of the village, hopefully even outside of the palisade, and meet them in a one-on-one confrontation. Hopefully, they don’t run away or anything… Now, to find the perfect person.

Choosing the right candidate had to be done with care. I wanted someone who lived outside the village, who was in an open space so they could see my approach, and someone who wasn’t an idiot and had a sensible head on their shoulders. With a bit of luck, that wasn’t too much to ask from these primitives.

The first two criteria were easy to filter for: all the villagers positively bloomed on the thermal spectrum and the surroundings had cooled down a bit as the local star began to descend in the sky. I had a count on all the people in the fields, sitting in front of homes, or moving about among the hovels. Now, for the last criteria: not choosing an idiot.

The drone I was using unfortunately didn’t have a neural scanner, and even if it did, the people being scanned would surely have noticed. No, I had to use a more oblique method to find someone who wasn’t stupid. I puzzled on this for a couple dozen steps before I came to my conclusion: Those with above average intelligence would probably be those who can devote time to activities which aren’t directly related to basic need procurement. That was one of the fundamental cornerstones of society: specialization. When society reached a point where not everyone had to hunt and forage, people began to have the free time to pursue more intellectual activities. In a primitive society like this, this intellectual “upper caste” would probably consist of craftspeople: those who, for example, made mechanical timepieces or handwrote books. People who would be indoors right now. Damn it.

I decided to cut my losses in that third category since I couldn’t think of any effective selection criteria at that moment, and pondering a bit more led me to a simple conclusion which negated the whole objective anyways: It’s not like the average intelligence quotient around here will vary that much, villager-to-villager. I decided to simply choose an isolated person at random and adjusted my course towards a woman I’d seen collecting plants and who wasn’t on the wrong side of the village compared to my current position. I’d seen her exit from a hovel outside the village a bit earlier, and she was currently alone with a basket and a harvesting tool. Time to get this over with.

Bringing the drone in closer to me, I had it check out my appearance one final time. I looked presentable, hopefully just like any random traveler. My simulated “clothing” was dirty enough that it didn’t look new, but not so filthy as to make me repellant to the locals—hopefully. If the clothing from the dead men had been anything to judge by, I’d need to be significantly more bedraggled before anyone thought me outside the norm. Also, all my interface ports and the stuff that would stick out to Elise-the-student were completely covered. I guessed that I’d come across as rather fit and good looking in the eyes of the natives, but not overtly unnatural or inhuman.

Anyways, enough. I look fine, it’s showtime.

Heading out of the wooded patch, I started walking towards the woman I’d located with the drone. My surroundings could’ve been described at the transition from wilderness to agrarian inhabitation. Trees didn’t surround me anymore, but neither was the land open enough to support the large-scale agricultural cultivation techniques that the natives used. Here, occasional trees sprouted upwards and diverse flora grew to form a thick underbrush.

My chosen first contact person was wearing a long dress, had bound back brown hair, and was kneeling in a bed of flowers. I watched her as she worked: with her one hand, she’d grip a bundle of flowers, and she would use a half-moon shaped cutting tool to slice the bundle at the base. Then, she’d take the freshly harvested bundle, place it in her basket, and repeat the cycle. I stopped ten meters away to give her space and spoke in Archivist’s Standard. If our languages had any common ancestor, this was my best bet.

“Greetings, stranger.”

The woman jumped a bit. I hadn’t tried to be quiet, but clearly, she hadn’t noticed me approaching, engrossed in her work as she was. She rose to her feet, still clutching the rounded cutting tool, and stared at me as she absentmindedly brushed off some yellow flowers which had stuck to her dress.

“ᑲ̴͓̔ᓕ̸̧̜͆͛ᑲ̵̩̘͊̓ᓘ̸͇̓̐ ̵̼͂̎ ᒎ̵͈̏͝ᒕ̸̢͐̕ᒕ̶̞͎̿̑コ̵͈̣̌”

I had absolutely no idea what she said. Well, there goes any hope of easy translation.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t speak your language.”

I was lucky that this woman and I apparently did have a common ancestor somewhere, no matter how many thousands of years back they might be, because it quickly turned out, there was one language we did have in common: basic body language. I could read her expression. At that moment, I was reasonably sure she was scared, so I tried again, this time with hand motions instead. I pointed towards myself, and then towards the setting sun, then the village, and then made a motion indicating rest. Hopefully, she’d understand.

Her fear or apprehension abated a bit, and she tried saying something else, judging by the tonality, it was probably in another language, but I wasn’t quite sure.

“d̸a̶s̸k̴a̴l̸s̴a̴ ̵m̶a̵e̴d̶l̷e̴n̶” she said, and seeing that I still didn’t understand, she rapidly went through several gestures with her hands. A hand-sign language? Color me surprised. I hadn’t expected something like that from primitives. Maybe it originated to communicate silently during hunting? Anyways, time to move this “conversation” forwards. I pointed towards myself, said “Elise” and hoped that she’d get the hint.

She did. After a moment, she pointed towards herself, and said “Dakla”. Hopefully, I’d just gotten her name, and not just the local word for “human”, “person”, or even “woman”. At that point, I realized that I’d probably lucked out with Dakla. Finding someone who spoke not only three languages but picked up on what I was gesturing rather quickly clearly wasn’t at the far left of the intelligence quotient distribution curve.

We stood there for a handful of seconds before she seemed to come to some sort of decision and gestured for me to come closer. I did so and when I came within two meters of her, we locked eyes and she gasped. Like stung, she jumped back, raised the harvesting tool, and glared at me suspiciously. This was surprising. I thought we’d gotten over the “I’m sorry for scaring you” part of the encounter. What made her so uncomfortable?

Adopting the (hopefully) universal surrender pose (two raised hands at shoulder height), I hoped she’d get this nonverbal message too. Clearly, she did, or at least, she lowered the tool and stopped taking steps backwards. Then, she made some more one-handed hand-speak signs, before waiting. Is she expecting a reply now? I raised my hands a bit further: we’d been getting along so well, and I didn’t want to blow it now.

Then, a seemingly random number of seconds later, a wave of relaxation washed over the woman’s expression and body language. She exhaled deeply, as if she’d just received good news, placed her harvesting tool in her basket, and picked it up before turning back to me. Suddenly no longer afraid of me, she looked around somewhat nervously before making a gesture. I understood, she wanted me to follow. I did, although somewhat confused by her sudden change in disposition.

We walked in silence, or at least I did. The woman—Dakla probably—occasionally would mutter something under her breath and throw apprehensive glances at the surroundings or at me to make sure I was still following. Clearly, she was nervous about something. Maybe she doesn’t want to be seen by the other villagers? At that moment I realized that I might’ve been missing out on some sort of social or cultural thing: Maybe the people who don’t live inside the village are ostracized or of a lower caste or similar. It would make sense. People outside the palisade had much further to walk to trade with the others and didn’t have the protection the wall presumably offered.

It wasn’t a long walk, but when we reached the woman’s abode, the local star was already beginning to slip below the horizon and a cool breeze had begun to blow. Dakla opened the wooden door, gestured for me to go inside, and then followed me and latched the door behind herself. Motioning me towards a table, I took the hint and a seat while she bustled around with her basket of collected plants, seemingly preparing them for further processing.

I noticed, appraising the interior of her hut, that plants seemed to be a vital part of this woman’s day-to-day life. Everywhere I looked, various flowers, plants, mosses, and even some fungi were stored and in various configurations. Along the walls were shelves, and on those shelves, small glass jars were lined up which appeared to contain mostly dried plants and other natural samples. From the ceiling, long strings hung with mushrooms or other desiccated plants which hung like beads on a necklace. In front of me, on the table, multicolored flowers were stored with their stems in a water-filled vase. That was probably only decoration.

Besides the countless dried and drying plants, there wasn’t much in this small room—not even doorways to other parts of the building. Augmented by my drone’s view, mapping out the space was simple: this was a one-room construction with only a front door and a back door. In this one room there was everything that Dakla presumably needed to live. An elevated sleeping spot in one corner and the table with four chairs in the other.

Along the far wall, there was a stone construction which the woman was now kneeling in front of and fiddling with. Quickly, it became clear what it was: a fireplace. Smoke started to pour out of the chimney on the roof and flickering firelight began to illuminate the room.

Still, the woman wasn’t done with her tasks. I watched as she retrieved a metal container, filled it with water, and placed it on a stone above the fireplace. A primitive hotplate! All of this was fascinating, but in a somewhat bizarre way. I never thought I’d see someone heat water in such an inefficient manner. Finally, when the woman deemed the water hot enough, she took the container with hot water, poured two cups, and then added some of the dried leaves. It seems that she’s preparing a local beverage. Cups in hand, she walked over, set one down in front of me, and then took the seat opposite me.

Then, the game was on. She pointed at the cup, said an alien word, and clearly expected me to repeat it. I grimaced a bit, this wasn’t going to be fun. Time to learn a new language. Yippee.